Nucleotide sequence of the gene for heat-stable enterotoxin II of Escherichia coli.

Previously, the gene for heat-stable enterotoxin II (STII) has been mapped by transposon Tn5 insertion mutagenesis in the chimeric R-Ent plasmid pCG86 (Mazaitis, A. J., R. Maas, and W. K. Maas, J. Bacteriol. 145:97-105, 1981). DNA segments containing this gene were cloned from the wild-type and STII-insertion-mutant plasmid. The position of the Tn5 insertion was determined, and a 530-base-pair-long segment of the wild-type plasmid corresponding to the Tn5 insertion site was sequenced. An open reading frame for the STII gene was identified and is characterized by typical promoter and ribosome binding site sequences. The deduced STII structural gene codes for a protein 71 amino acids long, including a typical signal peptide of 23 amino acids and a mature protein of 48 amino acids. The size and overall structure of STII are similar to those of STI, but the amino acid compositions of the two heat-stable enterotoxins are completely different.